{"id":11789,"date":"2011-11-02T18:06:14","date_gmt":"2011-11-02T22:06:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/?p=11789"},"modified":"2011-11-02T18:06:14","modified_gmt":"2011-11-02T22:06:14","slug":"a-political-message","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/2011\/11\/a-political-message\/","title":{"rendered":"A Political Message"},"content":{"rendered":"

A \u201cChoose Life\u201d banner hanging from the entrance gate at Seton Hall University is causing some controversy on the Catholic campus.<\/p>\n

The banner which was put up midway through October in honor of Respect for Life month shows a picture of a mother kissing a newborn baby with the words \u201cChoose Life\u201d followed by the phone number 1-800-848-Life for a pro-life help hot line. Father Stanley Gomes, director of Campus Ministry, told the Cardinal Newman Society he intends to keep the banner up for two more weeks.<\/p>\n

But the student newspaper The Setonian says the banner has elicited \u201cmixed reviews,\u201d even quoting one student who said, \u201cWe are a college whose primary focus should be about providing a quality education to its students, not making a bold political statement before prospective students and families can even drive inside the gates and see what we have to offer.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I wonder if there is a common thread between this controversy and the story of Muslims suing the Catholic University of America? Maybe people have come to expect Catholic schools to be so secular that the sign of a crucifix or a rather tame pro-life message can be controversial in any way.<\/p>\n

In an interview with the Cardinal Newman Society, Fr. Gomes said he is aware of the controversy. \u201cYou see, even at a Catholic university like this one, students and even some intellectuals are not clear why we would put something like this up,\u201d he said. \u201cThey think it\u2019s a political statement. That\u2019s how the world sees it but our idea is to celebrate life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fr. Gomes said, \u201cSome of the negative comments are that it\u2019s an institution of learning, and they\u2019re asking why are you making a political statement. But some students say it\u2019s about time that we should celebrate our identity as a Catholic university and we should do this stuff more.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fr. Gomes said he expects more negative responses but he is undeterred. \u201cI\u2019m not afraid. We\u2019re Catholic people. God loving. People loving people,\u201d he said. \u201cEven those who oppose us, we embrace them all.\u201d [Source<\/a>]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A \u201cChoose Life\u201d banner hanging from the entrance gate at Seton Hall University is causing some controversy on the Catholic campus. The banner which was put up midway through October…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pro-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11789","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11789"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11789\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11790,"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11789\/revisions\/11790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}